The Red Track: A Story of Social Life in Mexico

by Gustave Aimard

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  THE PRONUNCIAMIENTO.

  In any revolution, the insurgents have always an immense advantage overthe government they are attacking, from the fact that, as they holdtogether, know their numbers, and act in accordance with a long workedout plan, they are not only cognizant of what they want, but also,whither they are proceeding. The government, on the other hand, howeverwell informed it may be, and however well on its guard, is obligedto remain for a considerable length of time in an attitude of armedexpectation, without knowing whence the danger that menaces it willcome, or the strength of the rebellion it will have to combat.

  On the other hand, again, as the secret of the discovery of the plotremains with a small band of confidential agents of the authorities,the latter do not know at first whom to trust, or whom to reckon on.They suspect everybody, even the very troops defending them, whom theyfear to see turning against them at any moment, and overthrowing them.This is more especially the case in Mexico and all the old Spanishcolonies, where the governmental system is essentially military, and isconsequently only based on naturally unintelligent and venal troops, whoare utterly deficient of patriotic feelings, and whom interest alone,that is to say, pay or promotion, can keep to their duty.

  The history of all the revolutions which, during the last fifty years,have caused torrents of blood to flow in the New World, is entirelycontained in the last passage we have written.

  The President of the Republic had been informed of the designs of thegeneral, as far as that was possible; he had known for more than a monththat a vast plot was being formed; he even was aware of the probable dayfixed for the pronunciamiento, but he did not know a syllable about theplans arranged by Don Sebastian and his adherents. As the plot was toburst out in Mexico, the President had filled the capital with troops;and called in those on whose fidelity he thought he could reckon withthe greatest certainty.

  But his preparations were necessarily restricted to this, and he hadbeen constrained to wait till the revolution commenced.

  It burst forth with the suddenness of a peal of thunder at twenty placessimultaneously, at about the second hour of the tarde. The President,who was at once informed, and who had only come to the circus in ordernot to be invested in the government palace, instantly took the measureshe thought most efficacious.

  The news, however, rapidly arrived, and became worse and worse, and theinsurrection was assuming frightful proportions. The revolters at firsttried to install themselves on the Plaza Major in order to seize thegovernment palace, but being repulsed with loss, after a very seriouscontest, they ambuscaded themselves in Tacuba, Secunda Monterilla, andSan Agustin streets, erected barricades, and exchanged a sharp fire withthe faithful troops.

  The cannon roared in the square, and the balls made large gaps in theranks of the insurgents, who replied with yells of rage and increasedfiring.

  Colonel Lupo had taken possession of two city gates, which he burneddown, and through which fresh reinforcements reached the insurgents, whonow proclaimed themselves masters of one-third of the city. The foreignmerchants, established in Mexico, had hoisted their national flagsover their houses, in which they remained shut up, and suffering greatanxiety.

  The President was still standing motionless in the centre of the circus,frowning at each new message, or angrily striking the pommel of hissaddle with his clenched fist.

  All at once a man glided secretly between the horses' legs, and gentlytouched the general's boot, who turned round quickly.

  "Ah!" he exclaimed, on recognizing him. "At last! Well, Curumilla?"

  But the Indian, without answering, thrust a folded paper into his hand,and disappeared as rapidly as he had come. The general eagerly scannedthe letter, which only contained these words, written in French--"All isgoing on well. Charge vigorously."

  The general's face grew brighter, he drew himself up haughtily, andbrandishing his sword with a martial air, shouted in a voice heard byall, "Forward, Muchachos!"

  Then, digging his spurs into his horse's sides, he galloped out ofthe circus, followed by the greater part of the troops, the remainderreceiving orders to hold their present position until further warning.

  "Now," said the President to the officers who pressed round him, "thegame is won; within an hour the insurrection will be conquered."

  In fact matters had greatly altered. This is what had occurred:

  Valentine, as we said, had taken a house in Tacuba Street, and anotherin the vicinity of the San Lazaro gate. During the night that precededthe pronunciamiento, four hundred resolute soldiers, commanded byfaithful officers, were introduced into the house in Tacuba Street,where they remained so well hidden that no one suspected their presence.A similar number of troops were stowed away in the house at the SanLazaro gate.

  Don Martial, at the head of a large body of men, slipped into the smallhouse belonging to the capataz, and, being warned by the latter sosoon as the general had gone off to attend the review, he passed intohis mansion through the masked door we know, and occupied it withoutstriking a blow.

  The Tigrero straightway set a trap, in which several of the principalchiefs of the insurgents were caught, believing that they would findGeneral Guerrero at home, and were at once made prisoners.

  These three points occupied, they waited. Colonel Lupo had attacked theSan Lazaro gate so vigorously and unexpectedly, that it was impossibleto prevent him burning it. A very obstinate fight at once began, andthe colonel, after a brave resistance, had been at length compelled toretreat and fall back on the main body of the insurgents, who were stillmasters, or nearly so, of the centre of the city.

  We have mentioned that in Mexico all the houses are flat roofed; hence,in any revolution, the scenes in the street are repeated on the terracesof the houses; for the tactics adopted in such cases are to line theseterraces with soldiers. Through a strange fatality the insurgents, whileseizing the principal streets, had forgotten, or rather neglected, tooccupy the houses, as they believed themselves masters of the situation.

  All at once the terraces in Tacuba Street, looking on the Plaza Mayor,were covered with sharpshooters, who began a tremendous fire on theinsurgents collected beneath them. The same manoeuvre was simultaneouslyexecuted in Monterilla and San Augustin Streets, and the terraces of thepalace were covered with troops also.

  The artillerymen, who had hitherto fired at long range, now brought uptheir guns almost within pistol shot of the streets, and, in spite ofthe musketry fire of the insurgents, bravely posted their batteries andbegan hurtling showers of canister among the defenders of the barricades.

  Almost simultaneously, the troops faithful to the government appeared inthe rear of the rebels, and being supported by the sharpshooters on theterraces, charged vigorously to the incessantly repeated cry of "Mejico,Mejico, Independencia!"

  The insurgents felt they were lost, for they were caught between threefires; still they offered a courageous resistance, for, knowing thatif they fell alive into the hands of the conqueror, they would bemercilessly shot, they allowed themselves to be killed with Indianstoicism, and did not yield an inch of ground.

  The general was in a terrible rage; without a hat, his face blackenedwith gunpowder, and his uniform torn in several places, he leapt hishorse over the corpses, and dashed blindly into the thick of thegovernment troops, followed by a small band of friends, who bravely letthemselves be killed at his side.

  The fight was positively degenerating into a massacre; the two parties,as unhappily always happens in civil wars, fought with the greater furyand obstinacy because brothers were contending against brothers, andmany of them, for whom politics were only a pretext, took advantage ofthe medley to satiate personal hatred and avenge old insults.

  However, this could not go on for long thus, and it was necessary to getout of the situation at all risks. General Guerrero, unaware of theoccupation of his house, resolved to fight his way thither, barricadehimself, and obtain an honourable capitulation for himself and hiscomrades.r />
  No sooner was the plan conceived than the execution was attempted. DonSebastian collected round him all the fighting men left, and formedthem into a small band--for the canister and bullets had made frightfulravages in the ranks of the insurgents--and placed himself at their head.

  "Forward, forward!" he shouted as he rushed at the enemy.

  His men followed him with yells of fury. The collision was terrible, thefight fearful; for four or five minutes a funereal silence brooded overthis confused mass of combatants, who attacked each so savagely. Theystabbed each other mercilessly, disdaining to use their firearms, andpreferring, as a speedier resource, the sharp points of their sabres andbayonets.

  At length the President's troops fell back slightly, the insurgentstook advantage of it to redouble their efforts, which were alreadysuperhuman, and reached the general's house. The doors were broken openin an instant, and all rushed pell-mell into the courtyard. They weresaved! since they had at last reached the shelter where they hoped todefend themselves.

  At this moment a frightful thing happened; the gallery commanding thecourtyard and the stairs was entirely occupied by soldiers, and so soonas the insurgents appeared, the muskets were pointed down at them,a tornado of fire passed over them like the blast of death, and in asecond a mass of corpses covered the ground.

  The insurgents, terrified by this sudden attack, which they were so farfrom anticipating, hurriedly fell back, instinctively seeking an outletby which to escape. The tumult then became terrible, and the massacreassumed the proportions of an organized butchery. Driven back into thecourtyard by the troops who pursued them, and met there by those whohad attacked them and now charged at the bayonet point, these wretchedmen, rendered senseless by terror, did not dream any longer of employingtheir weapons, but falling on their knees before their executioners, andclasping their trembling hands, they implored the mercy of the troops,who, intoxicated by the smell of blood, and affected by that horriblemurder fever which seizes upon even the coolest man on the battle field,felled them, like oxen in the shambles, and plunged their sabres andbayonets into their bodies with grins of delight and ferocious laughter,and felt a horrible pleasure in seeing their victims writhe withheartbreaking cries in the last convulsions of death.

  General Don Sebastian, though wounded, and who seemed to have beenprotected by a charm throughout this scene of carnage, defended himselflike a lion against several soldiers, who tried in vain to transfix himwith their bayonets. Leaning against a column he whirled his sabreround his head, evidently seeking death, but wishful to sell his life asdearly as possible.

  Suddenly Valentine cleft his way through the combatants, followed byBelhumeur, Black Elk, and Curumilla, who were engaged in warding off theblows the soldiers incessantly made at him, and reached the general.

  "Ah!" the latter said on perceiving him, "here you are at last, then."

  And he dealt him a terrible blow, but Belhumeur parried it, andValentine continued to advance.

  "Withdraw," he said to the soldiers who surrounded the general, "thisman belongs to me."

  The soldiers, though they did not know the hunter, intimidated by theaccent with which he uttered these words, and recognizing in him one ofthose rare men who can always impose on common natures, respectfullyfell back without making the slightest objection.

  The hunter threw his purse to them.

  "You dare to defy the lion at bay," the general shouted, gnashing histeeth; "although attacked by dogs, he can still avenge his death."

  "You will not die," the hunter said coldly; "throw away that sabre,which is now useless."

  "Ah, ah!" Don Sebastian said with a grin of rage; "I am not to die; andwhy not, pray?"

  "Because," he answered, in a cutting voice, "death would be a mercy toyou, and you must be punished."

  "Oh!" he shrieked, and, blinded by rage, he rushed madly at the hunter.

  The latter, without falling back a step, contented himself with giving asignal. At the same moment a slipknot fell on the general's shoulders,and he rolled on the ground with a yell of rage. Curumilla had lassoedhim.

  In vain did Don Sebastian attempt further resistance; after uselessefforts he was reduced to utter impotence, and forced, not only toconfess he had been vanquished, but to yield himself to the mercy of hisconquerors. The latter, at a sign from Valentine, disarmed him first,and then bound him, so that he could not make the slightest movement.

  The massacre was ended, the insurrection had been drowned in blood. Thefew rebels who survived the carnage were prisoners; the victors, in thefirst moment of enthusiasm, had shot several, and it required the mostenergetic interference on the part of the officers to check this rathertoo summary justice.

  At this moment joyous shouts burst forth, and the President of theRepublic entered the courtyard at the head of a large staff, glisteningwith embroidery.

  "Ah, ah!" he said, as he took a contemptuous glance at the general, whohad been thrown on the stones, "so this is the man who wished to changethe institutions of his country?"

  Don Sebastian did not deign to reply; but he looked at the speaker withsuch an expression of implacable hatred, that the President could notendure it, and was forced to turn his head away.

  "Did this man surrender?" he asked one of his officers.

  "No, coward," the general answered, with clenched teeth, "I will notsurrender to hangmen."

  "Take this man to prison with the others," the President continued, "anexample must be made; but take care that they are not insulted by thepeople."

  "Yes," the general muttered, "ever the same system."

  "A fall and entire pardon," the President continued, "will be granted tothe unhappy men who were led astray, and have recognized their crime.The lesson they have received was rather rough, and I am convinced thatit will do them good."

  "Clemency after the massacre, that is the usual way," the general saidagain.

  The President passed without answering him, and left the courtyard. Afew minutes later the prisoners were led away to prison, in spite of theefforts of the exasperated populace to massacre them on the road.

  General Don Sebastian Guerrero was one of the first to appear before thetribunal. He disdained any defence, and during the whole trial preserveda gloomy silence; he was unceremoniously condemned to be shot, hisestates confiscated, and his name was declared infamous.

  So soon as the sentence was recorded, the general was placed in thechapel, where he was to remain three days before execution.